The musings, recipes and adventures of a girl that loves to eat

Bacon Bleu Cheese Burgers

If you were to judge a book by its cover, you might say that this is a normal looking hamburger with some bacon slapped on top. I am here to tell you that it is not just a plain old hamburger! And that’s because we did this to the inside of each one:

Making burgers was Nate’s idea, but, as happens occasionally given my somewhat bossy nature, I kind of told him what to do. He wanted to make the burgers so he could include his favorite things in one dish– red meat, bacon and cheese. Stuffing the bleu cheese inside the burgers was my idea, and it was a good one, but I’m afraid I started micromanaging a bit. If only Nate had been wearing his “Your opinion wasn’t in the recipe” apron… then I would have kept my mouth shut. Really! I gave him that apron for his birthday and when he wears it I’m reminded to keep my thoughts to myself. It started out as a joke, but it actually works.

You can probably see in the above photo that some of the burgers started to get quite fat and less flat during the cooking process– I’ve addressed this in the recipe below. As much meddling as I may have done, I left the grilling to Nate. Even I know that to impinge upon his grilling technique would be to insult his manliness. These burgers are the ultimate man-food, although ladies will enjoy them as well. I know I did!

Bacon Bleu Cheese Burgers

1 pound ground beef

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 cup crumbled bleu cheese

4 slices thick-cut bacon

4 buns

Put the beef in a bowl and mix in the salt, pepper and garlic powder. Divide the beef into 8 equal sections, and roll between your hands and flatten them into patties. Put a quarter of the bleu cheese in the middle of each of 4 patties, and then top with the remaining patties. It is important to seal the edges well because otherwise the bleu cheese will seep out. Once the edges are well-sealed flatten the patties– you want to get them as flat as possible without losing the structural integrity of the bleu cheese in the middle because otherwise they will resemble meatballs when you take them off the grill.

Put the patties on the grill that is moderately hot. If it’s too hot the meat will shrink a lot and you’ll get meatballs rather than hamburgers. Grill for 5 minutes on each side. While the meat is grilling, cook up your bacon until crispy. Remove the burgers from the grill when you have achieved you desired level of done-ness and pop the buns on the grill to toast them up a bit while your burgers rest.